NEW MESHUGGAH ALBUM DEBUTS AT #59 ON THE BILLBOARD CHART

It's been three years since Sweden's MESHUGGAH last released a studio album and toured North America, but given their recent achievements, such as debuting at #59 on the American Top 200 Billboard chart, clinching the #14 spot on the iTunes Top Rock Albums chart, being the #1 Most Added metal album on the CMJ Loud Rock and FMQB radio charts, setting a new Swedish My Space pre-listening promotion record for over a quarter of a million album streams in seven days, and sporting Blender Magazine's "Best Heavy Metal Drummer" & Guitar World's #35 ranked "Greatest Metal Guitarists" in their line-up, they're more than making up for lost time.

Taking a break from band rehearsals for their upcoming participation on Ministry's C-U-La-Tour (which launches this Tuesday, March 25th in Spokane, Washington) from their studio in Stockholm, Sweden is MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake:

"We are SUPER-STOKED! With a diminishing market for CD sales, we didn't quite know what to expect for obZen, but reaching a place on the Billboard charts is truly AWESOME! Of course, we feel that we have a strong album and all that, but kudos where it's due. This would not have been possible without the tremendous work of all the gents and gals at EMI & Caroline, our label Nuclear Blast, and of course, our fans. Thank you ALL for helping us reach new levels!"

A truly lateral-thinking force genuinely dedicated to pushing the boundaries of extreme music, MESHUGGAH have spent the last twenty years developing and exploring their metric art. It's never shocking to see some of the biggest names in metal standing in the wings at MESHUGGAH shows shaking their heads at the band's (di)versions of standard 4/4 time. Not surprisingly, the band's discography underwent scholarly analysis at the 34th Annual Meeting of The Music Theory Society of New York State in 2006, and the article, "Re-casting Metal: Rhythm & Meter in the Music of MESHUGGAH" was published in Music Theory Spectrum, the journal of The Society for Music Theory in the latter half of 2007.

obZen is primed to become yet another arrhythmic testament of MESHUGGAH's importance to the fields of recording and performing arts.